Simultaneously the floor shook with the impact of two heavy falls. And clinging to Dobbin, a little dazed, Lucinda saw a strikingly pretty young woman, stunningly undressed, sprawling at her feet, and at a yard's distance a man in similar plight.
Derisive cackles and guffaws of clowns broke out on all sides, a space was cleared round the unfortunates.
"Are you all right, Cinda?" Dobbin asked. She nodded and tried to smile. "Sure you're not hurt?"
She shook her head vigorously, and by way of proof stood out of his arms, but swayed dizzily and, with a little apologetic laugh, caught at one of them again.
"All right," Dobbin said hastily. "Let's get out of this."
"No—wait!" Lucinda insisted. "Perhaps she's hurt."
She brushed his arm aside, only to discover that the overthrown woman had regained her feet, and now stood watching her partner in shrewish fury as, grinning foolishly, he scrambled up.
"You clumsy dumb-bell!" she stormed in a rasping voice that must have carried clearly half across the room. "I hope to Gawd I got enough sense not to dance with you again when you're pickled!"
And catching her first glimpse of the man's crimson face, Lucinda yielded all at once to Daubeney's insistence.
But she never quite knew how they got back to their table.